The Here and Now

So, I left.
I left the village that had been my home for the past year.
Leaving was harder than I would have thought.

And it’s not because I am an emotional person.

The river was semi-thawed.
Just enough liquid to require a boat and just enough solid to make it a pain in the booty.

At the beginning of the trip there was a corridor barely wider than the boat that was filled with large ice chunks. Gunning the motor we slowly pushed through.
We stalled often and occasionally found it necessary to jump from the boat and push free.




Twice when traveling down the current the boys had to hop out of the boat and push it across the slushy ice. I tried to help, but they told me to stay in the boat.

“It’s too dangerous” they said.

They stood half in the boat and half out. One leg in and one out. Pushing the boat with one leg but keeping themselves in the safe from falling through with the other.

More than once their outside foot stepped down and kept going. Grasping the boat they pulled out from the icy extreme.





This is my last picture of the village. All the white is ice and snow.
So long, Kasigluk!